


Damnation

by tirsynni



Series: Sinners [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 15:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6811270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fullmetal was eleven when they first met. When Roy walked away from the house that day, he carried with him the madness in the boy’s eyes and the feeling of a ghost over his shoulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damnation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arinrowan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arinrowan/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Arin! Have some mad!Edward.

Roy Mustang awaited his penance more than he awaited anything else: more than the death of the Fuhrer, more than his own rise to Fuhrer, more than --

No. Don’t think about that. Focus.

Hawkeye knew to an extent. To what extent, Roy didn’t know. He freely admitted that he was a coward who was too afraid to ask. Hawkeye’s honesty was as sharp and lethal as a bullet to the chest. The others…well.

He was a coward, and he replayed all the ways his penance could go as punishment.

A trial, calling upon all the murderers of the Ishval people, all the filthy dogs not collared by their guilt like Armstrong was. Roy’s trial should include more, so much more, but…

None of this showed on his face as he reviewed Fullmetal’s latest report. Two destroyed buildings – “Oh, shut the fuck up, I put them back” – and property damage to everything from the roads to a local stream. More importantly…

That part wasn’t included in Fullmetal’s report. He dedicated all of one line to it. Hughes supplied the details.

“Only one casualty, Fullmetal?” Roy felt Fullmetal’s eyes on him, fierce and – “I’m impressed. Are you finally working on your self-control?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Roy saw a flash of white: Fullmetal’s fanged smile. “Don’t expect it again, Bastard. Don’t want to spoil you or some shit.”

Hughes included pictures. _Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Roy?_

Roy looked up and returned Fullmetal’s smile with one of his own. “I would never expect otherwise, Fullmetal.”

The young man sprawled insouciantly on Roy’s couch, short legs stretched out with black boots dangling by the opposite arm. Fullmetal rested with his elbow on the arm of the couch and chin in a metal palm. Fifteen now, babyfat fading quickly due to a lack of self-care and who knew what else to reveal a sharp jaw and cheekbones. Golden eyes far older than the rest of him gleamed as they studied Roy.

_No, Maes. I really don’t._

Roy looked back down at his report, slowly and carelessly, like he wasn’t alone with the Mad Alchemist. How the military referred to him, anyway. The people loved him, claimed him for their own, and if Fullmetal was mad at least they knew he would turn on the military long before he would turn on them.

“I might have another lead for you. Come back tomorrow, bright and early.”

Fullmetal huffed. Roy didn’t look up. “Just tugging the leash, aren’t you, Bastard.”

He didn’t sound angry, just amused. Roy thought it was worse.

“Dismissed, Fullmetal.”

Roy kept his head down as Fullmetal left. The young man had his trademark red coat off and draped over his flesh arm. It displayed his automail arm for all to see: a challenge and warning both. It also showed off his tight leather pants and his –

The man’s head had been displayed outside of the town for all to see. A military loophole: there were no laws against alchemy on corpses.

_Artistic,_ Maes called it. _Handled_ , Fullmetal wrote in his illegible scrawl.

Roy put the report to the side.

xoxoxox

Eleven years old when Roy first met him. When Roy calmed down and _looked_ at him, he finally realized what Fuhrer Bradley saw when he looked at his alchemists.

The boy was small, broken, but all it took was a handful of words to bring a raging fire to those golden eyes. A snap, a spark, and dozens of screaming corpses who didn’t realize they were dead yet.

The grandmother and the girl fought but Roy recognized what they didn’t in all the open spaces around the boy. Alphonse Elric’s corpse was never found, the only evidence in the dead glow of his big brother’s eyes.

Over the years, contrary to popular belief, Edward Elric had gained control over himself, but the look in his eyes had only worsened: harder, wilder, fiercer, a wolf growing into his paws.

All of this went through Roy’s head when he turned on his living room light and saw Fullmetal waiting for him.

Roy faltered for only a split second, but by the curl of Fullmetal’s mouth, he saw it. Roy cursed himself even as he smiled. “I thought you would be resting, Fullmetal. You’ve had a long week.”

Two violent deaths: Shou Tucker and the serial killer only known as Scar. There had barely been enough left to identify Tucker.

Fullmetal snorted. He was stretched out in a chair by Roy’s living room bookshelf, like a cat trying to look bigger than it actually was. His red coat was thrown over another chair: a claim. “I thought you would need rest more than I would. Scar almost took your head off.”

Before Fullmetal took Scar’s head off with the man’s own technique. He then knelt by the bloody corpse and examined its arm. Armstrong almost threw up when he asked if he could keep it.

“I don’t think I ever thanked you for that.” Roy was tired and had planned on taking a book upstairs to bed. Instead, he sat deliberately on Fullmetal’s coat and got comfy. Fullmetal was better than a cup of coffee, anyway. He already felt more awake.

Fullmetal grinned at him with his sharp, white teeth and snapped his book shut. The light had been off. How had he been reading? Did Roy really want to know?

On the front of the book was the Leviathan Cross.

“You still haven’t, bastard,” Fullmetal returned easily. “What’s the price of a life?”

Maes’s voice rose like a clap of thunder in Roy’s head. Roy ignored it. “Alchemists are still debating that. Some days it’s cheaper than others.”

Those golden eyes raked over him. The alchemist in Roy was desperate to know what he saw. “And if the sum is worth more than its parts.” Fullmetal’s grin grew, a mouthful of white fangs. “I need to check out one of those parts now. Call it equivalent exchange for not letting Scar take your pretty head off.”

“You think I’m pretty, Fullmetal?” The question was automatic, at odds with the hair rising at the back of his neck. Roy pretended he didn’t feel the heat rising in his blood.

Fullmetal was fifteen and a subordinate. He already owed so much penance.

But Roy was so damned weak, and Fullmetal’s smile was triumphant. And hungry. Roy turned away from him to examine the bookshelf but couldn’t help but see Fullmetal rise out of the corner of his eye. Fullmetal’s automail arm gleamed in the low light. Roy focused on that.

Eleven when they first met, missing an arm and a leg and an entire sibling. Besides a monster, what had he received in exchange?

Fullmetal stood between Roy and the lamp, casting a shadow over him. The heat crept up Roy’s spine. He needed to tell him to meet him tomorrow at the office, discuss it in the daylight with people outside the door.

He didn’t. He was a coward, and he was weak.

Equivalent exchange, they agreed on before. The words ricocheted through Roy’s skull as Fullmetal settled in his lap, heavier than he looked. Two automail limbs.

Roy couldn’t look away anymore. He turned and looked at Fullmetal, with his mad, hungry eyes and too young face.

_Fifteen_ , he reminded himself, but it was like yelling in a void. Fullmetal’s ass was warm and firm on his lap.

Roy met Fullmetal’s gaze. “This seems like an odd exchange for a life, Fullmetal.”

Fullmetal smirked and reached out. Roy couldn’t stop himself from jerking when Fullmetal cupped him with his flesh hand. Roy was already hard. When…?

“Keep up, Bastard. We’re talking about life here.”

Fullmetal was eleven when they first met. When Roy walked away from the house that day, he carried with him the madness in the boy’s eyes and the feeling of a ghost over his shoulder.

It was then, for the first time, that Roy wondered if he was in over his head.

“Not here,” Roy tried, fighting to ignore the hand stroking him. Fullmetal’s hand was strong, callused, and it would be so easy to pretend it was an adult’s hand. “Let’s –“

The automail hand covered his mouth. “This isn’t about romance, Bastard. It’s about science.”

xoxoxox

Fullmetal was beautiful. Roy recognized that when Fullmetal was fourteen, returning from a mission with dried blood still in his hair. Some of it was his. Some of it wasn’t. Everyone in the office gave him a wide berth except Roy and Hawkeye. It was that day that Roy realized Hawkeye had already completed her threat assessment of Fullmetal and still decided to leave him alone with Roy. He also knew that the Hawk’s Eye had determined what would be necessary to take Fullmetal down if it came down to it.

Roy realized that day that it would need to be Hawkeye, because he could never do it.

Three soldiers died because of Fullmetal during that mission. Two others would never recover.

“I still can’t find their souls,” was all Fullmetal said.

xoxoxox

When Fullmetal was done with Roy, he left him an exhausted mess on the floor. He used his mouth and flesh hand and automail hand to bring Roy to release again and again. He remained fully dressed, analytical, sharp as any of his spears, hungry eyes drinking Roy in. He left before dawn, Roy still staring with wide eyes, studying the stains on his hands. White dotted his lips.

“I’m going to bring my brother back,” Fullmetal said three years ago, childish face hard and words beyond belief. “And you’re going to help me.”

Roy closed his eyes. He was still completely dressed except his cock, wet and limp on his thigh.

This sin would never make it to trial. There was no penance in the world which could match this.

And he would walk smiling all the way to his damnation.


End file.
